Obviously, I am not alone in this desire, and as technology evolves and advances, much of the media we produce and consume is in fact already in a digital format. We now use digital cameras, pay our bills and receive bank statements through the internet in a digital format, communicate by email and other digital means, etc. The reason for this gradual conversion from an analog to a digital world is that the benefits of the change outweigh the disadvantages. They include easier organization, faster access, cheaper storage, better data security, protection from loss, and many others.

So, as I said, I have a goal of getting all the information in my life into a digital format. One of the reasons this makes sense for me is because I place little sentimental value on the physicalness of the objects that I own. To me, a digital copy of a book or a picture is just as good as the physical copy, no matter the circumstances. In fact, I have long considered myself the opposite of a compulsive hoarder, getting more satisfaction from having an empty drawer than from having a drawer full of “sentimentally important” things.

(Sad story to illustrate my point: When I was probably around 12 years old, I shared my room with my brother and it would frequently become so full of stuff that we could hardly move around in it. Every once in a while I would become fed up and just clean it out, throwing most things in the trash. My mom had designated a particular drawer as “Scott’s Drawer” where my important things were kept, such as drawings from kindergarten, awards, essays, and pictures. At some point during one of my cleaning binges, I became a little overzealous and decided I needed to clean all the “junk” out of that drawer. Suffice it to say that my mom was upset when she found out I had thrown away many things that she had been saving since I was baby. Sorry mom.)

Here’s where the irony comes in. As I transition to All Things Digital®, I am becoming a kind of “digital hoarder,” although not in the worst sense of the word. Since storage is so cheap, I never throw anything away (digitally speaking) anymore. I keep it all on the computer. And while I still like to throw physical things away, in my defense, I at least have a desire to convert everything to digital before I toss it out now. Unfortunately, I have a lot of information that is not yet digital. Fortunately, because I am young, a majority of what I have is already digital. This has led to the scanning of hundreds, and maybe thousands, of pictures; the capture of hundreds of hours of old family videos; and the conversion of hundreds of documents and journal pages and letters.

All of my files are backed up not only to hard drives in my house, but to online storage services like Amazon S3 via Jungle Disk and Dropbox. (One more side note: Dropbox is one of the coolest and most useful services ever. If you are not using it, it is worth taking a look at. Viewing their screencast will give you an idea of what it can do.) I love having access to all of these files from anywhere I can get internet access, and I especially take comfort in knowing that if my house was to burn down today, or half the world was to get blown up, my data would (most likely) be safe. If the whole world was to blow up I might be in trouble, so hopefully that won’t happen.

Next: A PDF of the LDS Version of the Scriptures

Robot Story 1 – The Engineer:

When I was 5 or 6 years old, I got the idea that I wanted to build a robot. I remember planning it all out in my head: it would have a body, and arms, and it would be really big, and have wires inside so it could move, and it would talk, and it would have a light bulb on the top. I couldn’t wait to build my robot, but I didn’t have the materials to do it. So I put together a list of materials, complete with hand-drawn descriptive pictures, and asked my dad to pick the items up for me at work. He agreed, and thus my plan to build a robot was initiated.

I waited with all the anticipation of an excited little child for my dad to come home that day, but when he arrived I found out that he had forgotten to pick up the materials. I was sad, but he promised he would get them the next day. So again I waited, barely able to contain my excitement when his van pulled up the house. Yes! He had remembered. But he wasn’t able to find the exact things I had asked for, and so had made a few substitutions. That was okay, I just wanted to build my robot!

I carried everything into the garage, and began the construction. A large cardboard box made up the legs. An upside-down 5-gallon bucket was the body. An emptied-out plastic flower pot was placed on top as the head. Long pieces of Styrofoam were taped on to the body as arms. Lots of masking tape helped hold the whole thing together. It was great. It was so tall I was going to have to stand on a bucket to put the wires in my robot’s head, and to connect the light bulb on top.

This is where the story gets a little sad. It wasn’t until I actually began placing the wires in my robot, that I realized it was going to take more than wires and a light bulb to make him move and talk. Yes, I had seen pictures of robots before, and they always had wires, but what did wires do? How was a wire in a pot going to help an arm made of Styrofoam and masking tape move? I was suddenly baffled and overwhelmed. What had been so clear and obvious only seconds earlier, now seemed absolutely impossible. I think it was one of the most profound moments of realization of my childhood… at least that’s how I remember it.

Well, I didn’t give up. I finished my robot, but it didn’t do everything I was hoping for. It stood in the garage for a few days, and then it was completely disassembled (so that it could do no further harm to humanity).

Epilogue:

Scott didn’t stop building things after that first robot. No, he went on to become a full-fledged electrical engineer, building other super-amazing things such as: a small fan, a marble-chute, and a pop-up book. But nothing he ever built has come as close to meeting its design specifications as that robot.

The mission administrative organization has its own complex and highly developed jargon. First of all, each mission, which consists of anywhere from 20 to 200 (or sometimes more) missionaries, is located geographically within an ‘area’, consisting of many missions, which are overseen by an ‘Area President.’ As stated previously, the mission is overseen by a ‘Mission President’, who reports to the Area President. Two highly motivated and experienced missionaries are chosen by the Mission President to be ‘Assistants to the President’ (often abbreviated ‘Assistants’), to help him in fulfilling his administrative duties. The mission is subdivided into ‘zones’, which are overseen by missionaries designated as ‘Zone Leaders’, who report to the Assistants to the President. The zones are further subdivided into ‘districts’, made up of 2 to 5 companionships, overseen by ‘District Leaders’, who report to the Zone Leaders. At the most fundamental level, districts are divided into ‘areas’ (yes, this is the second use of ‘area’), with one companionship assigned to each area. Nightly, each companionship ‘calls in numbers’ (a report of the work done that day) to their District Leader. The District Leaders call in to the Zone Leaders their district’s information, and Zone Leaders call in to the Assistants, who then report to the President. Typically ‘District Meetings’ are held weekly, ‘Zone Meetings’ are monthly, ‘Zone Conferences’ (where multiple zones meet together) are held once a transfer, and ‘Mission Conferences’ are held yearly, all focused on teaching the missionaries to become better at their missionary work. The aforementioned ‘meetings’ are usually a couple hours in length, while the ‘conferences’ are usually all-day affairs.

Missionaries spend their days teaching the ‘lessons’ – formerly known as, and still frequently referred to as, ‘discussions’ – which refers to a set of 5 specific, preplanned lessons on the Church. They teach these lessons mostly to either ‘investigators’ (people that are not members, but are willing to learn about the Church) with the goal of ‘baptizing’ them (performing the ‘ordinance’ or rite that would make them an official member of the Church), or ‘less-active’ members (an adjective applied to members of the Church that do not participate, and do not have a desire to participate, in anything related to the Church; also used as a noun to refer to such persons, e.g. ‘Let’s go see that one less-active.’), in hopes of ‘re-activating’ them. (The commonly used verb, ‘to re-activate’, is an optimistic take on what might be considered the more correct verb, simply ‘to activate’.) Particularly promising investigators are termed ‘golden’: “Sister Jones has read the whole Book of Mormon and wants to get baptized next week. She is golden!”; whereas investigators that do not seem to have moved forward in their learning about the Church for an extended period of time are termed ‘eternal investigators’: “We have been teaching Mr. Smith for 3 months, and he still isn’t ready to get baptized. Eternal investigators are frustrating!”

Missionaries are encouraged not to use language that is considered by the Church or the Mission President to be vulgar, informal, or negative. This has given rise to a myriad of mission-specific euphemisms or replacement words, many of which use the word ‘less’ as a prefix meaning ‘not’. These include words such as: ‘less-effective’ (an adjective meaning ineffective or a waste of time), the previously mentioned ‘less-active’, ‘semi-active’ (used the same as ‘less-active’, but refers to members that have some interest in the Church), ‘you Elders’ or ‘you Sisters’ (used as a replacement second person plural pronoun because ‘you guys’ or ‘y’all’ is considered informal), flip or fetch (euphemisms for another word that starts with an ‘f’; also replace other words that are themselves euphemisms, but are nonetheless considered to be vulgar by the Mission President, such as crap), among many others.

The missionary subculture of the Mormon Church has also developed a ‘missionary slang’, which is discouraged by mission leadership among current full-time missionaries, but is used freely among the regular membership of the Church, usually in reference to their missions. Some examples include the following: referring to the President as the ‘prez’; referring to the Assistants as ‘apes’ (a slight modification of the acronym for Assistant to the President: AP); referring to the Zone Leaders as ‘zonies’; referring to missionaries that are new in the field as ‘green’ or ‘greenies’; referring to one’s companion as ‘comp’; referring to missionary exchanges as ‘splits’; referring to the top leadership of the Church, which are collectively referred to as ‘General Authorities’, as GAs (an alphabetism, pronounced gee-eihs); etc. Although an effort is made by mission leadership to suppress the use of such slang terms, over time the slang use has persisted and even spread from mission to mission throughout the whole world.

There are two possible outcomes at the end of a missionary’s service: a missionary can receive an ‘honorable release’, or just a ‘release’. ‘Release’ refers to the end of the calling to be a missionary, and it is honorable if the missionary has completed the term of service usually required, or if the missionary is ‘leaving the field’ for medical reasons. All other circumstances lead to a ‘release’. Once released, the former missionary is referred to as a ‘returned missionary’, or an ‘RM’ (an alphabetism). Being an RM is a considerable honor within the Church, and a man’s being an RM is a marriage requirement for many women in the Church. Honorably released RMs usually spend considerable time once they are home going to various church meetings in their area, giving a ‘homecoming talk’, in which they frequently recount exceptional experiences that occurred during their missions, and invite the membership of the Church to participate in missionary work. It has been noted that the phrase, ‘the best two years of my life’, is used in every homecoming talk, almost without exception, although the phrase ‘so far’ is sometimes self-consciously appended to the end.

One of the most remarkable things about Mormon jargon and culture is that it is amazingly similar in every country throughout the world. Since the Mormon Church began in 1830, more than 1 million Mormon missionaries have gone to all parts of the world, most of them from the United States, taking with them both their language and their culture. Nearly all of the English Mormon jargon, only a small fraction of which has been mentioned in this paper, has been adopted by Mormons in every culture and language in which they exist. In languages where equivalent words exist, those are sometimes used, but more often than not the English jargon is adopted in its English form. This is true of the missionary subculture, as well as of Mormon culture in general, and it has led many members to exclaim that they feel at home no matter where in the world they attend a Mormon meeting. The Mormon Church provides a fascinating look into the subject of language variation in a social context that transcends all geographical boundaries.

Variation in language occurs constantly and continuously throughout our society, and for each of us, whether we realize it or not, it is a daily experience. Social groups have dialects, jargon, and slang that oftentimes transcend geographical boundaries and provide cohesion among members. This is particularly true of racial groups and religious groups. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church, provides an excellent example of religious/social language variation. It has been noted that Mormons made early contributions to American English. H. L. Mencken, in the earliest editions of The American Language, mentions some of these. In the 1921 edition he writes:

The Mormon Church has an extensive and unique culture and jargon that can be very difficult for outsiders to penetrate. Kenneth Woodward, a columnist for The New York Times, in an April 2007 op-ed piece concerning an address Mitt Romney (who was running for President at the time) was to give at Regent University, noted:

But Mr. Romney must be sure to express himself in a way that will be properly understood. Any journalist who has covered the church knows that Mormons speak one way among themselves, another among outsiders. This is not duplicity but a consequence of the very different meanings Mormon doctrine attaches to words it shares with historic Christianity.

He continued:

Thus, when Mr. Romney told South Carolina Republicans a few months ago that Jesus was his “personal savior,” he used Southern Baptist language to affirm a relationship to Christ that is quite different in Mormon belief. (For Southern Baptists, “personal savior” implies a specific born-again experience that is not required or expected of Mormons.)

Indeed, Mormon jargon is quite unique even among Christian religions. In fact, it is commonly understood among members of the Church that newcomers to the group will be disoriented at first – and as a result will have to go through a significant learning period before beginning to feel comfortable – and the members are thus counseled to assist the foreigner during the learning process. It is this impenetrable nature of the language and vocabulary that has led Orson Scott Card to refer to it as, ‘Saintspeak’.

In fact, the use of the name Mormon, in reference to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, comes from the Book of Mormon, a book which is considered by the members of the Church to be of divine origin. The book itself is named after an ancient American prophet/historian, Mormon, who, according to Church teachings, compiled and abridged the original engraved plates from which the book was translated. But ‘Mormons’ is not the preferred term among the members of the Church. They usually refer to themselves as LDS, an alphabetism of Latter-day Saint, or even more simply, as Saints. ‘Saint’, in Mormon usage, refers to any true follower of Christ (which obviously includes all members of the Church), which contrasts with the Catholic usage, and with the common everyday use in reference to “anyone who does good deeds.”

Probably the most unique area of Mormon jargon can be found among the Church’s missionary force. In the Church the term ‘missionary’ is used to refer to the young men and women dedicated to full-time service to the Church, although many frequently attempt to apply the designation to the general membership of the Church (as in “Every member is a missionary!”). The typical Mormon missionary is a 19-25 year-old male, or a 21-25 year-old female, who has been ‘called’ to ‘go on a mission’. The ‘call’ to be a missionary is not what most Christians would understand as a personal divine conversion or a lifelong commitment to a cause, but actually just a normal, temporary church assignment. And in Mormon jargon, one ‘gets a mission call’, and is thus ‘called to go on a mission’ or ‘called to serve’. The duration of the mission call is either 18 months or 2 years, and begins with a ‘farewell’, a special Sunday meeting in honor of the young man or woman and their family (a meeting which is, in fact, officially discouraged by the Church). Then, after a quick stop at the Missionary Training Center (commonly referred to as the MTC), the missionary ‘enters the field’ – leaves home to go and serve the full-time mission – at his assigned location.

‘Mission’ refers to both the 2-year (or 18-month) event of ‘serving the Lord’, and the group of missionaries in a particular location. Each mission (meaning the group of missionaries) is led by the ‘Mission President’, who lives in the ‘Mission Home’, which is typically near the ‘Mission Office’ (where the administrative work of the mission is done). The Mission President (who is always male) and his wife are also considered full-time missionaries, and have thus been called to serve in the mission, but they are typically older than 35. The missionaries in the mission refer to the Mission President as ‘President’, and to one another as ‘Elder’ (if male) or ‘Sister’ (if female). In the Church, ‘Sister’ and ‘Brother’ are used among the members to refer to one another (as is commonly practiced in many other Christian religions), but ‘Elder’ is a title reserved exclusively for two groups: either the leadership of the Church at the very top of its hierarchy, or, interestingly, the 19-25 year-old male missionaries.

All missionaries are assigned a ‘companion’, another missionary with whom they are expected to remain at all times. Infrequently, a third missionary may temporarily be added to a companionship, creating a ‘threesome’. One missionary in the ‘companionship’ is designated by the Mission President as the ‘Senior Companion’, responsible for all final decisions in the companionship, while the other is the ‘Junior Companion’. The Senior Companion is usually, but not always, the more experienced missionary in the companionship. Missionaries are rotated among different locations, and assigned different companions typically on a 6-week basis in an event called ‘transfers’. Usually a transfer is not a welcomed event, but sometimes it is, as in the event of a ‘less-effective’ companionship (meaning that the two missionaries do not get along at all). Frequently, between transfers missionaries participate in ‘exchanges’, which involve trading companions for one day. One day each week, usually Monday, is designated as ‘Preparation Day’, which is somewhat of a misnomer since, although it was originally intended as a day for weekly preparation-type activities (such as getting a hair cut, going shopping for food and clothes, etc.), it is commonly used by missionaries for sightseeing, playing sports, or sleeping.

Mormon missionaries enjoy keeping track of ‘mission genealogy’. When a missionary enters the field for the first time he is ‘born’, his first companion is referred to as his ‘father’, and likewise he is his father’s ‘son’. Second companions are referred to as ‘stepfathers’, and third companions are referred to as ‘godfathers’. A similar system applies to the female missionaries, but the female equivalent designations are used. Missionaries eventually ‘die’ – leave the mission – and, infrequently, they are ‘resurrected’ – re-enter the mission. Large and complex family trees develop quickly, with many missionaries keeping track of their ‘brothers’, ‘grandfathers’, ‘grandsons’, etc. Usually missionaries can only reasonably retain a couple of generations of mission genealogy, with one exception. Every once in a while there is a missionary that does something extraordinary, whether it be good or bad, that merits their designation as a ‘mission legend’. Mission genealogy that immediately precedes, and which follows, the mission legend, is often maintained for years.

(Read part 2 here.)

1. Elder Marlin K. Jensen

2. Bishop H. David Burton

3. Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi

4. Elder Charles Didier

Runner up: Elder Claudio R. M. Costa

As a self-proclaimed connoisseur of doughnuts, I have always expected that my relatives, associates, and friends would take my considered opinions of doughnuts as fact. To my dismay this has not always been the case. So, in an attempt to strengthen my position, I present this post – a comparison of three brands of doughnuts – complete with pictures and video. It is my hope that the visual presentation of the forthcoming doughnut facts will, once and for all, establish my personal objectivity and rightness on all doughnut subject matter. Naysayers, prepare yourselves.

Let’s meet the contenders!

First up, the mother of all doughnut makers… the keeper of the glaze wall… the activator of the HOT NOW signage… the favorite of millions of Americans… Kriiiiiissssspy Krrrrremmmme:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Second to the ring, it’s the friendly doughnut store down the street… the hexagonal doughnut deliverer… Carmellllllla’s Creeeemmmme:

And our final contender, the Boston beauty… the arch-nemesis of Starbucks… the purported under-runner of America… Dunkin’ Dooooonuuuuuts:

The Rules

No points will be awarded in this match. The three brands of doughnuts will be examined in a haphazard way by the judge, Scott “Crispy” Cromar. A winner will be declared at the end by the judge. There will be no appeal of the final decision. No degree of fairness is implied. You may comment on the battle at the end of the post, but be aware that deletion of your comment is at the discretion of the judge. Game on!

The Match

I went to each of the three doughnut stores so that I could try out the doughnuts. The first stop was Krispy Kreme:

(This is not the actual store I went to, but it was something like that). My doughnuts were delivered to me in a beautiful, green polka dotted box. The presentation was really spectacular, and the green and red logo on the box truly caught my eye. It reminded me of a wonderful holiday. I have to say, I was very impressed from the get-go with Krispy Kreme.

My second stop was Carmella’s Creme Donuts. The store is right down the street, and has a sweet, inviting atmosphere.

The doughnuts were loaded into a white paper sack. That was a little disappointing after the nice box I got at Krispy Kreme, but they were also significantly lower priced than either Krispy Kreme or Dunkin’.

The final stop was Dunkin’ Donuts. I went to a brand new store in Champaign, and although I found it clean, the color scheme was a little distracting.

Even though the doughnuts at Dunkin’ were more expensive than at either Carmella’s or Krispy Kreme, they also came in a paper sack. Unfortunately, the sack was covered with the pink and orange color scheme, which kind of made me lose my appetite.

Actually, it reminds me of a great scene from The Simpsons:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dunkin’ really disappointed me when it came to presentation of their product.

Once I had acquired all the doughnuts, it was time to get down to business. For the sake of brevity, I limited the doughnut comparison to two specific types: glazed raised, and chocolate raised. Let’s take a look at the glazed first.

The first thing you’ll notice when you look at the glazed doughnuts together is how misshapen the offerings from Dunkin’ and Carmella’s are. This is quickly forgiven in the case of Carmella’s because of the large size of the doughnut. No such redeeming qualities can be found in the Dunkin’. What is not apparent in the picture is the taste and texture of the doughnuts, but I’ll get to that in a second. Now let’s look at the chocolate raised.

Similar observations can be made in the chocolate raised offerings. The Krispy Kreme is stunningly beautiful, with an ample supply of chocolate. Carmella’s is again slightly misshapen, but covered in chocolate and ample in size. Dunkin’s doughnut… kind of lacking in every area. Not enough chocolate, misshapen, and small. This just isn’t expected from the most expensive doughnut in the bunch. The Krispy Kreme on the other hand offers even more than meets the eye: not only is there chocolate on the top, but the doughnut is glazed too. Good show Krispy Kreme.

So how do the tastes and textures compare?

	Glazed	Chocolate
	Nearly engulfed in glaze!; light and melt in your mouth texture; when eaten cold Krispy Kreme triumphs; when hot, it is on a whole different scale of goodness	Maybe one of the best donuts ever!; the combination of glaze and chocolate is doubly-delicious; even the underside of the donut is flavorful
	Very fluffy, light texture; better flavored dough than Dunkin’; plenty of glaze with a good flavor	Much lighter and fluffier than Dunkin’; ample amounts of chocolate; chocolate was rich and yummy
	Junky dough texture (spongy, dry, dense); good buttery glaze, but there was only a thin layer of it (it is so thin in fact, that can’t tell which side of the donut is the top)	Too dense, no flavor in the dough; chocolate flavor is okay, but it needed more

(Catherine helped in the creation of this table and the final analysis.)

Conclusion

In the final analysis, Krispy Kreme is the clear winner. Krispy Kreme had both the best looking doughnut, and the best tasting doughnut. The texture of the doughnuts was excellent, as was the overall presentation. After Krispy Kreme came the other two competitors. I don’t really want to rank the losers, but if you were to ask me, I would say Carmella’s comes in second. Why? Well, their doughnuts are bigger and cheaper than Dunkin’s doughnuts, and the texture and taste are superior also. As a concession to the Dunkin’ lovers out there, in analysis not presented here, I found the Boston cream doughnut of Dunkin’ to be considerably more tasty than that of Carmella’s, but we all were expecting as much.

(For further information on doughnuts and the doughnut war read my other post.)

The year: 1937. The man: Vernon Rudolph. The place: Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The pastry: doughnuts. But, not just any doughnuts, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

The History

While the true origin of the doughnut is in doubt, the great era of the modern American doughnut began in 1937. On July 13 of that year, Krispy Kreme founder Vernon Rudolph opened the first Krispy Kreme store. He began by selling the doughnuts to local grocery stores, but before long people were stopping by his store asking to buy hot doughnuts direct. He cut a hole in the wall so that he could get the doughnuts to his customers directly. Demand grew, and before long an American classic was born. Now, nearly 70 years later, the original recipe for the succulent yeast-raised doughnuts has been enjoyed by people all over the world. But as most doughnut lovers know, not everything has been bliss in the doughnut world during the past 70 years. The Krispy Kreme campaign of peace and doughnut harmony, begun in 1937, was severely disrupted less than 13 years later.

Yes, in 1950, in the great city of Quincy*, Massachusetts, William Rosenberg opened the first Dunkin’ Donuts. Rosenberg’s success really began a few years earlier, in 1946, with the founding of Industrial Luncheon Services, a service company that delivered meals and “coffee break snacks.” He soon after opened his first coffee and doughnut shop, “The Open Kettle”. Dunkin’ Donuts followed and quickly became a success also. By 1968 Dunkin’ Donuts had begun a franchise, whose sole purpose was to serve delicious coffee and donuts to starving Massachusettsianerites.

Thus began the doughnut wars.

The Debate

In the beginning, a safe distance separated the Krispy Kremers from the Dunkin’ Donut-heads. As time passed, Dunkin’ Donuts flourished in the East, while Krispy Kreme found success in the South. Eventually, the buffer zone between the two camps shrank, and sometime in the early 90′s each one invaded the other’s home territory. As it stands today, the doughnut world is officially divided, and an epic struggle rages.

On the one side, Krispy Kremers proclaim the superiority of their super-sweet, super-melt-in-your-mouthy, original glazed. They say that nothing tops a fresh Krispy Kreme, HOT NOW off the assembly line. On the other side, Dunkin’ Donut-heads cite their doughnut’s – or donut’s – greater density and cakiness, and overall greater variety of food goods in each store. You might be able to eat one Krispy Kreme, they say, but you can eat a million Dunkin’ Donuts, and plus they have the best coffee.

The longstanding debate among doughnut lovers doesn’t appear to be coming to an end anytime soon. In fact, with the help of the internet, the debate may even be heating up. This can be seen on any number of popular social networking sites. One such site, Facebook, which caters to college and high school students, has groups “Dunkin’ Donuts is better than Krappy Kreme” and “Krispy Kreme is better than Dunkin Donuts”, both with growing memberships. Similar fan pages can be found on the massive social networking site MySpace. Yes, the war rages.

Scott and Doughnuts

My name is Scott, and I am a doughnut lover. Since my early youth I have felt an affinity for doughnuts. I remember times that I would grudgingly accompany my father to help friends of ours that were moving away, or new neighbors that were moving in, load and unload moving trucks. Frequently they would reward us for our help by presenting us with a recognizable pink box… a box of doughnuts. I found that biting into a fluffy chocolate raised would make me feel good inside, like it wasn’t so bad having to go and help people move. Other times I would go to work with my dad, a paint contractor, and when we would arrive at the paint store to get supplies we would be greeted with a box of doughnuts. Again, all my annoyance, stress, and frustration seemed to be absorbed by an oh-so-buttery old fashioned.

In high school I began selling doughnuts in the mornings to earn money. I would buy six dozen from the local doughnut store at a discount, and then go and sell them to my classmates and teachers at school for 50 cents each. Over time I became familiar with all the standard varieties of doughnuts, and I would cater to the specific likes of my clientele. As I sold the doughnuts each day, I found the smell of the deep-fried goodness intoxicating, and I would sample them. On any given day I would eat between 3 and 5 doughnuts, and I liked it.

Sometime around my junior year in high school Krispy Kreme arrived in California, and soon thereafter we met for the first time. I was little surprised when I tried my first original glazed. It was not what I was expecting. It was not like any doughnut that I had before tasted. It was the way that it melted in my mouth – the way that it disappeared so quickly – it was different. It wasn’t until the day after my first encounter that I realized: I liked the doughnut, I really liked it. I found myself craving the taste of the glaze, and I wanted more. On that day I became a Krispy Kremer.

The Misguided War

I quickly became aware of the doughnut war that was raging, but it wasn’t until fairly recently that I was able to officially take a side. I had tried Dunkin’ a few times before moving to Illinois, but it was never really fresh, and I always wanted to give Dunkin’ a fair go. When the time finally came to settle the question for myself, I was a little surprised (once again) by what I found. After all the hype I had heard from friends and relatives, I found Dunkin’s doughnut to be, well, normal. It was good, yes, but almost all doughnuts are. There was nothing really special about it. In fact, every time I eat a doughnut from Dunkin’, it reminds me of the doughnuts I used to buy in high school. From my personal doughnuty-perspective, Dunkin’ Donuts are very similar to the doughnuts you would get at any mom-and-pop store, anywhere in the country. (Visit my doughnut comparison post for full details.)

Having sampled, tasted, savored, and considered each of the doughnuts that make up the great doughnut war, I found myself becoming increasingly perplexed. What is the nature of this war? Why are the Dunkin’ ideologues so fanatical about a doughnut that I find to be just average?

I decided to dig deeper, and I found that, in truth, the doughnut war has been terribly mismanaged. Yes, the doughnut war, begun with the best of intentions, has now lost its way, and it is time that everyone admitted it. I know that hearing these words might not sit well with some that are reading this, but I swear on the holey shape of the torus, that it is the truth. Allow me to elaborate with two important points.

First of all, there is a misunderstanding in the doughnut world. When two doughnut lovers get together to debate the merits of their respective doughnuts of choice, they should be very clear about what they are talking about. If we are going to talk about doughnuts, then let’s talk about doughnuts. If I claim that Krispy Kreme makes a better doughnut than Dunkin’, and you disagree, tell me why by citing the advantages of your favorite doughnut. Apple turnovers, breakfast sandwiches, bagels, and especially coffee have no place in the discussion. I don’t care if you prefer Dunkin’ Donuts because they carry the kind of apple juice that you love, I am talking about doughnuts. A discussion of doughnuts, and only doughnuts, should be the goal in every doughnut confrontation; all other foods should be put aside.

Second, economic and business related issues in a discussion about doughnuts are irrelevant. Yes, Krispy Kreme experienced a period of massive growth in the late 90’s that quickly deflated in the early 00’s. Yes, Dunkin’ Donuts has more stores, and is on better financial footing at the moment than Krispy Kreme. Yes, Krispy Kreme is not headquartered in Boston like Dunkin’. You know what? It is irrelevant. These things do not matter in the world of pure doughnut love. If the doughnut war is being fought over such unimportant issues, then it is clearly misguided.

The Krispy Kreme Invitation

Again, let me reiterate. I love doughnuts. Not just one kind either, but many kinds. I like the doughnuts from the Asian couple down the street. I like the donuts at Dunkin’. I like the doughnuts sold by the gypsies in Albania. But for me, when I want something just a little bit better than the average doughnut, I go to Krispy Kreme. A fresh, warm, glazed doughnut is a treat and a delight, and it gives me a deep-down fuzzy feeling that even a very good “normal” doughnut does not. If you are one of the many that are too blinded by the pink and orange, and the coffee, and the breakfast sandwiches, to recognize how special Krispy Kreme doughnuts are, then I invite you to open your mind and take a fresh look. There is a beautiful, shiny, glazed world right next door. You have been sent the invitation. We are waiting for you, and you will be welcomed whenever you decide to come over.

*Quincy is properly pronounced /kwinzi/. I was going to give the pronunciation in IPA, but since it is less accessible to most people, I won’t.

As a student of electrical engineering, I feel privileged to have the opportunity to attend such a great university. Having completed my first semester of graduate studies at the U of I, I can now say with certainty that it is cold in Illinois. We are in the midst of winter, but we are also obviously looking forward to warmer weather because we have just begun the second semester of school, also known as the ‘spring semester’.

The start of the spring semester brings with it a special, and relatively new, experience for me. It is an experience that I have been anticipating for the past couple of months, but one that has me a little nervous. I actually kind of view it as a social experiment, through which I hope to develop a better understanding of people and the world in general. But let me begin with an observation that sets the scene for the interestingness of my spring semester experience.

University campuses can typically be divided up into ‘areas’, or ‘zones’, that correspond to the general areas of study: social sciences, physical sciences, biological sciences, medicine, law, humanities, crop sciences (if the university is located in the middle of nowhere), engineering (the coolest of them all), etc. This is, of course, not always the case, but in my experience at two large universities it has been essentially true. Allow me to illustrate.

The University of California, Irvine, where I did my undergraduate studies, is probably the most extreme example of “major segregation” that you can find. Situated in the middle of the master planned city of Irvine, the university was laid out in the shape of a wheel. If you were to visit the campus you would find at the hub of the wheel a large park, intended as a place where students can go to relax and reinvigorate themselves before another round of wonderful, enlightening classes. Then, if you were to walk in any direction outward along the spokes of the wheel you would find yourself entering one of the five main areas of study, or the administration area. This layout is clearly observable in the map of the campus, reproduced below, where each area is color coded for your convenience. (Note: I did not do the color coding, that is how it appears on the UCI website.)

In the map of UCI, purple represents the engineering area, bounded on the north by the red (the dreaded social sciences), and on the west by the yellow (the not so dreaded physical sciences). Note the clearly defined boundaries between each area of study. Although not apparent on the map, the boundary between engineering and social science is actually nothing more than a bridge that connects one area to the next. This division of territory is desirable for a number of reasons. The most obvious is convenience. If a student is focusing their study on a particular area, let’s say religion (or maybe French or liberal arts), then a majority of the classes that that student is going to take will be from the more general area of study to which they belong, in this case humanities. This being true, it is simply easier on everyone if all of the classes of a particular area of study are located in close proximity to one another. Professors that are doing research in similar areas are close to one another, students don’t have to travel far to visit those professors, everyone is happy.

In addition to the convenience factor, there is a practical reason for the separation. The individual schools/areas, which are usually relatively autonomous within the university, have responsibility for their area of the campus. They individually run the administration and upkeep of the buildings, seek out funding for their programs, and if they can manage, build new buildings (in their area) to accommodate growth. Obviously I am making some generalizations here, but please bear with me if you disagree.

To the casual observer it might appear that convenience and practicality are sufficient reasons for dividing up the campus into zones. But, to anyone who has spent some time at university it is apparent that there is another more subtle, but very real and powerful, reason for the divide. While examining the map of UCI you may have asked yourself, “Why are the dividing lines between adjacent areas so definite?” “Surely,” you might think, “there wouldn’t be that much harm in a little bit of overlap from one area to the next.” You might even be tempted to rationalize this observation by concluding, “UCI must be the exception, rather than the rule.” Well, let’s take a look at another example.

The U of I has a similar division of areas. This is most clearly illustrated by the division of engineering from humanities, and the rest of the campus for that matter. As can be seen on the map below, Green Street (marked by a red line) provides a clear, hard boundary between the two areas; engineers to the north, everyone else to the south. In fact, given the availability of most services to the north of Green Street, including the engineering library, the average not-so-daring engineer would hardly, if ever, need to cross the street. That is, unless the engineer was actually a DARING engineer, one who was looking for adventure, he would probably never need to cross the street… which takes us to the point of this article.

What is the other, hidden reason for the campus divide, and what is this special experience/experiment I am involved in?This semester marks the first time in over two years that I am crossing the boundary, as a DARING engineer, to take an English class. It is an event that is not just rare for an engineer, but is almost unheard of for a graduate student in engineering. The reason for the rarity of this event is the exact same reason for the divide between engineering and everyone else on campus. That is, people from engineering and people from the humanities do not mix. What I mean by that is that they are incompatible, they don’t work well together. You know what I’m talking about if you have ever tried putting hot sauce on your toast in the morning, it’s not good. That’s not to say that they can’t communicate with one another, they can. It’s just that it’s a painful process for both of them. It turns out that by keeping the various areas of the university separated from one another, the productivity of the whole campus is maximized. If you need proof then take a look at some of the schools that don’t maintain the division, they aren’t going anywhere.

So anyway, I am going for it. I am crossing Green Street, and entering the English building. Truth be told, I have been doing this for exactly three weeks now. What has been the result so far? Well, just as I suspected, it has been a trying, but enlightening experience. Crossing the street is analogous to entering another dimension (just like you see in the sci-fi movies, which by the way are my favorite). The first time that I entered the new dimension there were two things that struck me as unusual: first, the percentage of females around went from about 5% to what seemed like 60% or 70%, and second, everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. I realized after a few minutes that the slow motion effect was caused by the fact that people only walked about half as fast as those in my home dimension. Strange things were already manifesting themselves… but to my surprise, it was about to get even stranger.

As I entered the classroom for the first time, I immediately took note of the instructor’s computer. The Thinkpad that usually sat on the desk was not a Thinkpad, but a MacBook. But that wasn’t all, as class started, the instructor didn’t go to the board and start lecturing, but rather took a seat on the TABLE, and started asking us about ourselves. “Where are you from?” “What are your majors?” “What languages do you speak?” The discussion was lively and entertaining until it came to me. A hush immediately fell over the room when it became known that there was an Albanian speaking engineer in the room. The professor proceeded to ask me, “why are you taking this class?”

“Because I want to become a better writer, and I feel that having a better understanding of English grammar will be valuable in that effort,” I replied.

“That is a fallacious idea, isn’t it class? Does a person need to know how the engine of a car works, to be a good driver? No, he doesn’t. In the same way, a person can be a good writer without knowing grammar.”

While there was some truth in what he was trying to say, I didn’t respond by pointing out that I felt his analogy was inaccurate. A knowledge of grammar, whether conscious or unconscious, is a requirement for a writer. Lacking that, one could hardly expect to construct coherent sentences. A more accurate analogy would have been, “Does a driver need know how to turn the steering wheel, or push the gas and break pedals, or change gears, to be a good driver?” Yes, in fact, that is important. Anyway, this was all beside the point because the writing practice and critique was going to be the most valuable part of the class for me anyway.

The confrontation ended with my concession of inadequacy (after all, I am an engineer), and a final comment from the instructor, “well, it’s good to come south of Green Street every once in a while.”

Yes, the divide exists, and it exists for a reason. Frequently I have asked myself, is the divide artificial? In other words, is the divide self perpetuating, or are there inherent differences between carnivorous Republican engineers, and vegetarian Democrat liberal arts majors? I find time and again that I must conclude, yes, there is a difference.

Legal Disclaimer: The views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of CrispyCromar.com or Scott Cromar.

(Edit: In an effort to be more stylistically correct, and to please my brother-in-law, I added some capital letters in the second to last sentence. I expect that it is still wrong.)

2001-2002

This is the beginning: a Frontpage template, and a few random pictures and links. The archive of the site is missing a lot of the graphics, but you can get a pretty good feel for the site. At this point my main goal was to just put something on the web, the content was an afterthought.

2002-2003

In 2002 I ditched Frontpage, and began delving more into the HTML. I stole a template from Chris Pirillo, made some alterations, and basically began my first blog. I learned some photo editing and flash to make it all even COOLER. Unfortunately, much of that has been lost and no longer appears in the archive. I began posting regularly on my blog, with topics mostly focused on current events. Most of these posts have now been added to this website once again, and I am surprised to find how opinionated many of my posts were, and how my opinions have changed since that time. For example, I realized how I used to just hate Apple, but have since been sucked into Steve Jobs’ “Reality Distortion Field”.

2004-2007

This signaled to return to a simpler design, modeled after (read: copied from) apple.com. I did it, as I recall, to mock all my Apple-loving friends, but later I just thought it was a really nice, simple interface (yes, that is the point). I recognized that my main customer at this point was just my family, so my focus eventually changed to just posting pictures and videos that I thought they would enjoy… I mean YOU would enjoy. This included a lot of youtube videos that I found to be interesting for one reason or another.

2007

2007 was a freshening up of the interface based on cascading style sheets. This had to happen because Apple FINALLY updated their website, and I didn’t want mine to look old!

2007-2008

That takes us all the way to the present. Later in 2007 I took the plunge and moved over to wordpress as my content management system (CMS). Most of my posts now are family related, or funny videos. Actually, I should say most of my posts are Andrew related, since he seems to have become the primary focus of my life (and website) now.